Sanctified By Oppression
by ckret2
Summary: tween ArmadaEnergon When the war ended, the Bots and the Cons were supposed to merge into one faction and live in peace, but it seems the Cons got the raw end of the deal. This is what happened in the 10 missing years.
1. The Treaty

Hiya! My third Transfic, and my first CHAPTER Transfic. Yay me. Though I REALLY need to work on my other ones... this idea has been bumping around my head ever since I saw the preview of Energon, and I just HAD to write it. We all have fics like those, right?

This is a semi-sequel to Gravedigger, though you don't have to read that to get this. If you don't want to, don't. My feelings won't be hurt, and you won't be confused. But thankee to all the people who reviewed Gravedigger!

This story will be from the Decepticons' POVs, mainly Demolisher, Cyclonus, and Wheeljack, maybe a little from Tidal Wave, maybe some fanchars, and maybe a little about their Minicons, but only Decepticons. This is supposed to be a fic that, as Haley Macrae has said, "Gives a Human side to the Decepticons." Don't expect much pro-Autobot stuff here. I'm trying to end the Cons' bad reputation, explain how the Cons got to be where they are in Energon, and explain where some of the missing Armada characters (e.g. Wheeljack and Sideswipe) went to between series. C'mon, don't tell me you've never wondered where Sideswipe went? I, for one, want to know why he isn't following his "brother" everywhere in Energon.

One last thing: As you will recall, at the end of Armada, Optimus Prime was floatin' around in space. No one seems to wonder when he came back to be in Energon, and all the transition fics I've read act like he was there the whole time. I'm just pointing out that he WASN'T there the whole time, because that's important to the fic. Prime won't be appearing for the first few chapters, sorry.

And I don't know Cybertronian time measurements. I've heard the words vorn and cycle and stuff, I just don't know how long that is. So I'm sticking to hours, minutes, days, etc. If anyone is willing to explain Cybertronian time, I'd appreciate it.

Now, on with the fic!

Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers, either Energon or Armada, and I don't own the song "One" by Creed, which will have little quotes throughout the fic. I don't even own the title, it's a quote from "One." However, I do own the plot, and any fanchars that pop up.

Words in _italics_ mean they're thoughts.

.....

Sanctified By Oppression

Chapter 1

...

"The goal is to be unified; Take my hand, be my brother."

...

"Five minutes, five minutes, five minutes, five minutes..." Cyclonus chanted to himself, then checked his internal chronometer again. "Four minutes, four minutes, four minutes, four minutes, four minutes..."

"Cyclonus, will you PLEASE cut that out?!" Demolisher pled. "I'm trying to relax a little, and counting down the minutes until we reach Earth isn't helping."

"Aw, poor baby," Cyclonus mocked. "I don't care if you are the new Decepticon leader, I ain't taken orders from you! Besides, I'm bored. We've been on this stupid ship for twenty hours, and my game died."

Demolisher growled as Cyclonus resume his chant. Stupid Earth video games, with their stupid short-life batteries. Now, if GameBoys had been made by Cybertronians, they wouldn't die for centuries! Demolisher didn't even know how Cyclonus could play those tiny things. He'd probably got someone to make a Transformer-sized version.

He, Cyclonus, Wheeljack, and Tidal Wave were on their way to Earth to negotiate the peace treaty between the Autobots and the Decepticons. All they had had so far was a short-time agreement between the factions' MIA leaders. Now that the war was officially over, they had to come up with some sort of permanent treaty.

"Hey," Wheeljack said suddenly. "Isn't the name of the Decepticon leader supposed to end in –tron?"

Demolisher thought a moment. "Yeah..."

"So, shouldn't your name have a -tron? Since you're the new leader."

Cyclonus cackled. "Ooh, Mighty Demolitron! Great name!"

Demolisher glared at Wheeljack. "You HAD to get him started, didn't you?"

"Hey, I'm bored too. I just needed something to talk about," Wheeljack said defensively.

"We're about to land!" Cyclonus announced. "Thirteen seconds, twelve seconds, eleven seconds..."

"Good luck with the Bots," Wheeljack said, fastening his seatbelt. Even giant transforming robots have to fasten their seatbelt when coming in for a landing. "See you when you're done."

"What do you mean? You guys are comin' with me!" Demolisher said angrily.

"Two seconds, one seconds, LANDING!!" Cyclonus looked out the window, and frowned when he couldn't see Earth's landscape. "Hey, we're supposed to be on the ground now! Demolitron, go beat up the pilot or somethin'."

"My name's not Demolitron," Demolisher grumbled. "If you want to beat up the captain, go do it yourself."

"Is that an order?" Cyclonus asked gleefully. "I think I will!"

The second Cyclonus unfastened his seatbelt and stood up, the ship landed, knocking Cyclonus all the way across the room. "AAAUGH! I'M SUING!"

"What does 'suing' mean?" Demolisher asked. Wheeljack shrugged.

The threesome left the ship and waited on the landing pad for the escort that was supposed to find them and take them to the meeting room, where they would discuss the treaty. They had no clue how to get around the Autobot base, so they didn't have much of a choice but to wait.

"Where's Tidal Wave?" Demolisher asked suddenly.

"I think he's still in the ship," Cyclonus said. "Can I go get him? I don't want to wait around for some Autobot!"

"Be back in five minutes," Demolisher said, waving Cyclonus off.

"If I'm not back by then, sent a search party!" the helicopter cracked, going back into the ship.

"Someone really needs to tell him he's not funny," Wheeljack muttered, leaning against the ship. Demolisher grunted.

They waited there for a bit, listening to unidentified noises coming from inside the ship. Demolisher tried to stay calm. He had never had to write a treaty before. Heck, he'd never even had an education! He had been a stupid soldier since the day he was born. A stupid soldier who now had his own army. Whoopee.

There were only a few things the Decepticons really needed to get out of this treaty. The right to put other planets under the control of the Decepticon Empire (of course, the Autobots would want them to leave Earth alone), the right to keep Minicons, and they needed to stay a separate faction. The Decepticons were warriors by nature, but also in their programming was the want for expansionism, to extent the boundaries of their property. Which is how the whole "take over the universe" thing got started. The Autobots only wanted Cybertron, which was one of the two factions' differences. And the Bots probably wouldn't have much of a problem with owning Minicons. They owned Minicons too, right?

What Demolisher was really worried about was staying a separate faction. There had been some talk since the war had ended a couple of months ago that the two factions would merge into one. That would be bad. When the Decepticons took control of a planet, it would be the Autobots' planet too. The Autobots would have equal control over the Decepticon Empire; they'd have equal say in how it was governed. And the Decepticons didn't want to do things the Autobot way. That was why they WEREN'T Autobots.

But, of course, the Autobots would want the Bots and Cons to be at peace once and for all, and to do that they seemed to think that they'd have to be one faction. That would never work. They'd all be at each other's throats within months. Especially since both their leaders would be inexperienced... whoever the new Autobot leader was.

"It's too bad Starscream's dead, isn't it?" Wheeljack said lightly, as if he were talking about the weather. Obviously, he didn't care too much for the Seeker. So, why did he mention him?

"Why's that?" Demolisher asked.

"Well, he was an Autobot for awhile, right? He'd know his way around the base. We wouldn't have to wait for a guide," Wheeljack replied. It was then Demolisher noticed the tenseness in Wheeljack's lower jaw. He actually wasn't as casual about this as he was letting on. He was probably pretending to be calm.

'_Wheeljack must be pretty nervous about being in the Autobots' base,'_ Demolisher thought. _'He used to be an Autobot. Now, to be here where they can do whatever they want to him... He probably thinks they want to kill him or something.'_

Before Demolisher could answer, they heard footsteps from the other side of the ship. Turning, they saw Blurr come around the side of the ship.

"I'm supposed to take you to the meeting room. So come on." Blurr turned to go, expecting them to follow him.

"Wait a minute. Cyclonus and Tidal Wave are still in the ship," Demolisher said. Blurr stopped. "Fine. Have it your way," he muttered, leaning against the ship.

"Not very social, is he?" Wheeljack commented. Blurr glared at him.

About a minute later, Cyclonus flew out of the ship in his helicopter mode. Tidal Wave followed, walking. "Found the big guy! Now let's go! I'm getting bored."

"Bored?? You've only been out here ten seconds!" Demolisher exclaimed.

"That long already? Let's get to this meeting thing now!"

Blurr led the group down a long hallway. Demolisher guessed it was the main hallway, where you could get to any other one. But what did he know? Maybe the Autobots liked long hallways.

One way to tell when you're desperately trying to distract yourself: You start having discussions with yourself about hallway length.

Blurr stopped in front of an unmarked door. "This is the room," he said shortly, then turned and left.

"Not very social, is he?" Cyclonus said. Wheeljack muttered something about copycats.

Demolisher ignored them. _'Okay, open the door slowly, peek in and see who the new leader is, then go in. Or if it's someone I think I can't handle, close the door slowly and get the heck outta here. I'll find a new Decepticon leader. Would Wheeljack be any good?'_ Demolisher slowly reached towards the access pad to type in the unlock code, but froze. _'Wait a minute. I'm the new leader of the Decepticons! I don't need to be afraid of some lousy Autobot. I'll just open the stupid door and get it over with!'_

Demolisher typed in the code and let the hydraulics in the door open it with a /whoosh/. Bracing himself, he looked into the room and almost laughed with relief when he saw the only person in the room was the yellow guy, sitting at a conference table. Hot Shot, one of the least experienced Autobots.

"So, you're supposed to be the new leader?" Demolisher asked, amused. He was feeling a lot better about his bargaining chances now.

Cyclonus was really getting a kick out of this. "So, Demolitron and Shotimus Prime?! What a riot!"

Hot Shot glared at Cyclonus. "The name is Hot Shot. Not Shotimus. Remember that."

"Fine, whatever," Cyclonus said. "Hey, 'Hot Shot,' did you ever notice that if you change the O's in your name to I's, your name is Hit Sh--"

"Maybe you should wait outside, Cyclonus," Demolisher muttered. No matter how inexperienced, it isn't a good idea to annoy the commander of an enemy army."

"Maybe I should," Cyclonus said cheerfully. He stood where he was. "Just so you know, I don't take hints."

"Fine! I order you to go into the hallway! And if I see your ugly little propeller in here before this meeting is over, it'll end up shoved down your THROAT! Do I make myself clear?"

"Y-yes SIR!" Cyclonus stuttered, saluting. It took a lot to get Demolisher angry. And if he's your new leader, you probably don't want to be the one who made him mad.

After he was sure Cyclonus was gone, Demolisher pulled out the only other chair at the table and sat down. "Let's get this started already," he muttered.

"Okay, fine," Hot Shot said. He glanced nervously up at Tidal Wave and Wheeljack. There were three Decepticons in the room and only one Hot Shot. "By the way, did you really change your name to..."

"No. My name is not Demolitron," Demolisher interrupted. "Okay, first of all, there are several things that are gonna be in the treaty, no two ways about it..."

.....

And that's all, folks! Ain't I a mean little bugger? You have to wait until the next chapter to find out how the meeting went.

This chapter was kinda slow, but it'll pick up after this. Trust me. It'll get interesting...

Please review! If I get enough reviews, I'll put this fic at the top of my updating list and put most of my plot bunnies to work on it. So, please? My bunnies are getting bored...

ckret2


	2. Paperwork

I AM UPLOADING THIS CHAPTER ON MY OWN PERSONAL COMUTER! No more sharing with two parents and a sibling! WH00T!!

Thanks to those people who read chapter 1. My plot bunnies appreciate it. :-) Now, response to my reviewers:

Pivot: Glad you enjoyed it so much. Unfortunately, not all the chapters will be as humorous. But, with Cyclonus, there's gotta be at least a little humor, right? I think I like his version of Hot Shot's name better! Hex, don't threaten me with Trig, you release him on me and I'll just challenge him to Super Smash Bros Melee. Watch ckret meet a fanchar Minicon. Watch ckret play against Trig on GameCube. Watch Trig kick ckret/Samus' tushie. Run, ckret, run! Go, Trig, go!

SaphireStars: I think Megs wants to revive Unicron because he thinks if he does it himself, he'll be able to control Unicron. Think Galvatron in TF: The Movie. But I don't know if I'll go that far forward in the timeline. I was just going to go up to the beginning of Energon, but if this fic is popular enough I may have to do a sequel. ((winkwinknudgenudgesaynomore))

Sirene: Glad you like, and here's more!

Haley Macrae: Don't worry, you'll see what happened with Prime soon enough. Remember, I'm trying to fill in ALL the plot holes here, including the disappearing characters (human and Cybertronian alike), Optimus Prime's mysterious reappearance, the discovery of Energon, how the humans began interacting with Cybertronians, why the Autobots are the supreme rulers of Cybertron despite the fact that they and the Cons were going to rule Cybertron equally according to the end of Armada, when they got the new paint jobs, why Demolisher is so reluctant to go back to the Decepticons, why Cyclonus says in Energon Eppie 4 that "Scorpinok has been revived" or something like that, despite the fact that we previously knew of no one named Scorpinok, why no one powerlinxes with M-cons anymore, why the white head on Alpha Q sounds suspiciously like a whiny Thrust with a slightly higher voice than usual... the list goes on and on!! If anyone has any AE-Gap questions they'd like answered, ask me to answer it in a review. Odds are, I've already got it covered, but you never know, I might leave something out unless you remind me. Thankee for the plushie. Is it Starscream? Seeing as I received it via review, I can't really tell... I hope it's Starscream.

Norma Lee Insane: I like you name... "Abby who?" "Abby Normal" Sorry, I had to throw that quote in... it's from one of the Frankenstein movies. Don't know which one. Anyway, thanks for the review!

Right, then, on to chapter 2. As I said before, this is gonna be mainly a serious fic. But there will be some humor in, mainly because I'm not the best drama writer and usually end up throwing a plethora of jokes worthy of the Cyclonus Award of Tackiness right in the middle of my dramatic death scenes.

Please note that I don't know exactly what a datapad is, so I'm kinda turning it into a cross between a laptop and a PDA. (Just what the American consumer needs, more overrated tech stuff, eh?)

Anyways, with that done with, onward to the fic!

Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers, "One," "Mega Tokyo," or "Neverwinter Nights." Diddlysquat, Seek Destroy and this fic are owned by me.

.....

Sanctified By Oppression

Chapter 2

.....

Cyclonus looked up as Demolisher, Wheeljack, and Tidal Wave filed out of the room. Demolisher looked dismal.

"How'd it go?" Cyclonus asked, putting his game down. The Elite 4 could wait. This was the fate of all Decepti-kind! Wait... "Decepti-kind?"

"Is Decepti-kind a word?" Cyclonus asked before Demolisher could answer his first question.

"Uuuuh..." Demolisher said, taken aback.

"It went fairly well," Wheeljack said. "Demolisher still gets to be in command, and we get to expand our Empire. I'd think we basically got what we wanted."

"What do you mean?!" Demolisher said angrily, forgetting all about Cyclonus' nonsense word. "The Decepticons and Autobots are officially the same faction now, the Minicons can't be owned, and I have to share rule with Hot Shot! I think your name for him was pretty accurate, Cyclonus."

"What, Shotimus?" Cyclonus asked, trying to figure out whether he'd just been complimented or not.

"No, the second one."

"Oh." Cyclonus had no clue what Demolisher was talking about. However, he did get what Demolisher was saying about the treaty. "You mean we have to live with Autobots?"

"Yeah. Which also means that anything we do has to be done at least partially the Autobot way." Demolisher glared at the door he'd just come out of. Cyclonus guessed Hot Shot was still in there. Maybe he went out another door or something. Maybe he could teleport. Now that was a disturbing thought.

"Well, we still get some say in the government, right?" Wheeljack argued. "And we get to expand our Empire, as long as we don't bother Earth..."

"Yes, except it isn't _our_ Empire, it's our and_ theirs_!" Demolisher yelled, whirling on Wheeljack. "Of course, you'd be happy with anything that happens! You may wear the Decepticon insignia, but you've still got Autobot fuel running in your veins. If Decepticons were made slaves for the Autobots, you'd happily work for anyone you got auctioned off to, wouldn't you?"

Wheeljack took a step back, stunned. "What? Never! I hate the Autobots as much as you do. I used to be an Autobot, but I'm not one anymore. You know that!"

Demolisher sighed. His whole structure sagged. "Yeah, I know. It's just... I'm the leader of an army I never wanted, and I'm not very good at it. I can't even get a few little things for the Decepticons, and I was debating against a punk who wouldn't know how to shoot the ground if someone didn't tell him how."

There were a few moments of silence, before Cyclonus decided he had to relieve a little of the tension. "Hey, if you don't want to lead the Cons, can I take over?" Cyclonus smiled eagerly.

"No way! We're in enough trouble as it is! We don't need you messing things up too." Even as he spoke, Demolisher cracked a small smile.

Cyclonus was very pleased with himself. It was the first time he'd gotten any sort of positive reaction from one of his jokes in months.

...

((Back on Cybertron, several months later...))

Demolisher sighed as he sat down behind his desk. He'd never suspected leading the Decepticons would require so much paperwork. Of course, most of these were Autobot formalities. If Decepticons had remained separate, they wouldn't need to fill out this much stuff. Autobots might say Decepticons were disorganized. Not true at all. They were just more efficient. If you want to build a ship, you don't get your boss to sign a permission slip, you tell him as he's walking around the base and making sure everyone's working, and wait for him to say yes or no. Things got done a lot quicker in the Decepticon army.

It seemed things were getting done reasonably quick at Hot Shot's desk, too. Hot Shot and Demolisher shared an office (the leaders of Cybertron working in an OFFICE!!), so Demolisher could see him quickly scribble a signature on every datapad handed to him, just so he could get out of there. And hang out with his "brother," Demolisher guessed. That's all he'd seen Hot Shot do in his spare time.

"I'm done with my work. Se ya later, Con!" Hot Shot declared, leaving his desk and racing for the door.

Getting a quick idea, Demolisher pulled out a blank datapad and typed on it:

My name is Shotimus Prime. I am the leader of the Autobozos, not the Decepticons. I think Optimus is stupid, and wish I were more like Demolisher and Megatron. I also like wearing pink tutus and dancing ballet to Weird Al songs.

Signed,

X

"Oh, Hot Shot! You missed a datapad!" Demolisher called out, waving the datapad's stylus at him. Groaning to himself, Hot Shot ran back and signed the datapad Demolisher held up without even looking at it. "There. I'm outta here!" Hot Shot transformed into his car alt-mode and was gone in two seconds.

Demolisher chuckled to himself and got back to work. The first thing he'd do when he got done would be make copies of that and give them to everyone he ran into.

Demolisher started reading another datapad. Someone wanted to do something to something else. What? He reread it, but it just didn't process. He really couldn't concentrate.

'_I need a break'_ Demolisher thought. _'I've been sitting at this stupid desk...'_ he checked his internal chronometer _'... over five hours! I'll bet my leg joints can't even move by now!'_

Demolisher stood up, and his knees squeaked. _'That can't be good.'_

He needed to take a walk. But... all the datapads he needed to sign! He refused to sign them without reading them, unlike Hot Shot. Demolisher smirked to himself when he thought of the nasty surprise the young Autobot was in for.

Right, they weren't supposed to call each other Autobots and Decepticons anymore. No factions... yeah right.

"What's the point of all this deskwork? A real leader should be out with the others, doing actual work!" Demolisher glared at the desk, then stared longingly at the door. _'What would Megatron do if he was in my position?'_

'_Shoot Hot Shot?'_ something in his subconscious suggested, then apparently got serious. _'Megatron wouldn't do all this junk. He'd be around his soldiers, watching what they were doing, giving them approval directly, making sure they weren't messing anything up. He wouldn't be signing datapads day-in and day-out, that's for sure.'_

"And I won't either," Demolisher said. Grabbing one of the unsigned datapads, Demolisher erased all text on it and typed on it in the largest font it would allow: "If you want approval for something, ask me directly! I won't be giving signed permission anymore."

Propping that up on the desk where it was easily visible, Demolisher left the room, not planning on taking a break anymore, but on checking out what everyone was doing.

And maybe distributing a few datapad copies.

...

"Hey bro! What're you doing?" Side Swipe said cheerfully, running up to Hot Shot. Hot Shot sighed inwardly. He'd have to find some way to tell that Side Swipe to stop bugging him...

Until then, he'd be nice.

"Hey Side Swipe," Hot Shot said, forcing a smile. "You done with your work?"

"Diddlysquat took over for me. So, I'm on break for the rest of the day!"

"Oh, great," Hot Shot said, less than enthusiastic. That mean that every break he had for the rest of the day would be spent with Side Swipe.

Hot Shot tried to remember what Side Swipe's job was. He knew Diddlysquat was a former Decepticon. How did Side Swipe get him to take his place?

((Outside the base...))

"I can't believe Side Swipe told me he'd take over my duty tomorrow if I take over his today!" Diddlysquat said, standing guard outside the building. Read as: stood in front of the door and gossiped with passer-bys. "Too bad he doesn't know my job is to watch after EVERY Minicon in the base... Wonder if I should warn him about Seek Destroy's dedication to killing Minicon baby-sitters... nah."

((Back with Hot Shot and Side Swipe))

"So, what're you doing, bro?" Side Swipe repeated, smiling way too eagerly.

Hot Shot ground his teeth, but managed to talk normally. "Well, I think I've finally got enough time to contact the humans and see how they're doing."

"Aw, cool!" Side Swipe said. "Hey, can I come too? I'd like to talk to them!"

"Sorry, Side Swipe, but you won't be able to talk, I'm going to use this text communication called 'email,'" Hot Shot said, then decided he needed to elaborate so that it wouldn't sound like he was just brushing Side Swipe off. "I haven't tried to contact Earth before, and I need to concentrate so I'll be able to tell if I did something wrong."

"Oh. I see," Side Swipe said, his smile dropping. He was instantly about ninety percent less annoying than he had been three seconds ago. "Um, okay then. If you wanna hang out later, I'll be in one of the rec centers..."

Ah, the wonders of post-war! You could afford to put rec centers and break rooms in the capital!

"Okay, see ya later, Side Swipe," Hot shot said, then to sound apologetic, he said, "Maybe we can hang out tomorrow, right?

"Nah, I've got work all day..." Side Swipe said, walking away slowly.

A few seconds later, Demolisher can up to him and handed him a datapad. After reading it, Side Swipe was in a much, much better mood.

Well, he was after he had glared at Demolisher a bit for dissing Autobots.

...

((on Earth, with the Autobrats))

"Man, school's so boring!" Carlos whined. "I wish the Autobots were still here. We could go kick some Deceptibutt!"

Alexis wisely chose to ignore her friend's griping. It wasn't like she could stop him from complaining. Besides, she was bored out of her skull, too. Which was why they weren't in class. Rad, Carlos, and Alexis were sitting on top of the school, directly above the principal's office, reading comic books. Except for Alexis, who had brought her laptop and was online through a wireless connection. Getting on the Internet was infinitely more intellectual than reading comic books.

She was reading the online comic "Mega Tokyo."

"Things _are_ pretty quiet, aren't they?" Alexis mumbled, still reading and wondering if Neverwinter Nights really was a mind-control device. She didn't really need to listen to her friends to know what they were talking about. If they looked happy, they were remembering the Transformers. If they were sad, they were wishing the Transformers were there.

Except that fat dude. Billy or Fred, Alexis didn't know or care which was which. He looked sad when he was hungry.

"Hey Alexis," Rad said.

'_Uh-oh,'_ Alexis thought. '_He addressed my directly. I'd better pay attention.'_

"Yes Rad?" Alexis said.

"Don't the Autobots have your email address? So, shouldn't they email you sometime?"

Alexis resisted the urge to sigh. "Yes, Rad, for the fifth time this week, they have my email address."

"Then how come we can't talk to them?" Carlos asked.

"Because they haven't emailed us yet and I don't know their email address. If Cybertronians even have email addresses."

Rad and Carlos stared at Alexis blankly. "Cyber-whats?"

Alexis stared back, shocked. "What do you MEAN, 'Cyber-whats'?? CYBERTRONIANS! As in they live on Cybertron! Transformers!"

"Oh," Rad said blankly. "I didn't know they were called Cybertronians."

Alexis rolled her eyes. "Some day I won't have to deal with these two fools, and then people will actually listen to me! I could change the world, maybe, if these morons weren't holding me down from reaching my true potential..." Alexis continued muttering to herself. She'd spent a little too much time with Starscream.

Since she knew what the next question would be, Alexis opened her inbox, so she could show the others that yes, indeed, it was still empty. Except it wasn't.

Alexis blinked. There was a single message, titled, "Finally got the hang of this email thing..." It was from someone named htshtce.gov.

'"_Ce"?'_ Alexis thought. _'What does that stand for? And who's "htsht"?'_

She opened the email.

"Hey everyone! It's me, Hot Shot! I had enough time to figure out how email works, so I decided to see how you guys are doing.

"Things on Cybertron are pretty good. I'm co-ruling with Demolisher. He's just like Megatron, determined to make sure the Decepticons are completely isolated from everyone, keep the Minicons as slaves, and of course take over the universe. And he wastes all this time going over every little detail of anything he signs, like he still has reason to be suspicious of us. I think he's a little different from Megatron, though. When we were discussing the treaty, I was able to talk a little reason into him. Who knows? With a little luck, we may be able to get him to trust us.

"The Decepticons are working with us now, and the Minicons are free. We're going to be colonizing some uninhabited planets nearby. Maybe sometime in the future, we could start building Transformer/human colonies, and have our races work together.

"So, that's what's going on here. Things are pretty hectic. We haven't had an official government on Cybertron in eons. Literally. But, when things are a little more organized, maybe you can come to Cybertron for a while. We're trying to terra-form parts of it so biological beings can visit. It'll take awhile for things to stabilize though. Maybe twenty years. All the paperwork and stuff that we need to go through comes in slow, and signing it all only moves things along a little. So I'll let you know when things get better. Um, humans live more than twenty years, right?

"Hot Shot, Co-Commander of the Cybertronian Empire"

'_Ce. Cybertronian Empire! I get it!'_ Alexis grinned, and replied.

"Hot Shot, great to hear from you! Hope things don't take that long to straighten out on your end. And I hope Demolisher can learn to get along with the Autobots better. Don't worry. Humans live a lot longer than twenty years. Most of us live to be a hundred, give or take, and we're only 16 years old. 36 isn't that long away. Reply soon, getting an email from you is the most interesting thing that's happened in half a year!!

"Alexis

"PS: You might want to reconsider calling yourself a Co-Commander. It sounds like you're stuttering."

Alexis sent the email, just as Carlos asked, "So, man, is your inbox still empty?"

Alexis ground her teeth and restrained herself from yelling at Carlos for referring to her as "man." "Yes, Carlos, it's still empty," she lied. She didn't want to have to deal with their ridiculous excitement over the email.

She'd tell them eventually.

...

Notice that the Autobots don't get along quite as well as we thought they did. Remember Hot Shot's real opinion of Side Swipe. It'll be important later on. But don't worry, you'll hear more about it from time to time. You won't be expected to remember it ALL BY YOURSELF... I'll keep reminding you in the stories of important facts until you get sick an' tired of hearing about them.

Till chapter 3! Till all are one! Till the pizza man gets here! (Half-hour guarantee my foot.)

ckret2


	3. TerraForming

I'm glad so many people are enjoying this! Thank you for reading; it's all of you that make me want to keep writing.

Haley Macrae: The plushie can be anyone I please? YEE! ((huggles plushie))

Neko: Thaaaaaaaank you! ((squee))

Kamaitachi: Thank you too! ((double-squee))

Ra88: All Decepticons will get PLENTY of attention; I just haven't decided where to work Tidal Wave in. But don't worry, there'll be at least one chapter focusing on him. Notice how he kept loyally believing Megatron should, could, and WOULD come back no matter what? In the very first episode, his intro was of him staring into space. Possibly looking for a sign as to when Megatron would return? Tidal Wave will have his time in this fic. And thanks for the spoilers, but until I see the eppies, I think I'll go with my definition. But thanks for news about Prime's return. The Matrix was lost? Hmm... poor Autobots. ((heheheh))

Pivot: I think I'll use Hypotenuse next chapter, okay? Thankee muchos! People, read her fics. They deserve it.

Hey, has anyone noticed how Energon seems like it could very well be a fanfic? You've got a couple of new factions (the Omnicons and Terrorcons), humans fighting alongside Autobots, a plot that ALMOST makes the Decepticons seem pitiable, reviving Unicron, two characters other than Prime being resurrected (and does it bother anyone else that within the FIRST TEN EPISODES Prime's already died and come back?!). And then the whole episode Pitiful Starscream/Legend of Rodimus, whichever it's called. THAT can't be anything BUT a fanfic!

I'm afraid that circumstances call that I put in a little stuff from the Autobot/Autobrat POVs. And, so you know, in my story the Autobrats are sixteen, which means that during Armada they were fourteen and fifteen. If, in ten short years, they're expected to have jobs working for the Autobots, they have to be older than twenty-two. So, when this fic ends, they'll be twenty-six, 'cause they're sixteen now. See me logic? See it? GOOD!

Now, before people read this chapter and start flaming me, I know you all hate Thrust, and I do too. But we all have to admit that most of the time he got what he wanted, right? Right. So, we just have to remember that. Even if we do hate his #$% guts.

Disclaimer: Don't own Transformers, though I expect that someone who's posted on this site now does... ((glares suspiciously at readers)) I'm on to you! I own the city Regalix, and my brother owns the name. I own Diddlysquat. Pivot owns Hypotenuse and the HUMDINGERS, who're appearing next chapter.

.....

Sanctified By Oppression

Chapter 3

.....

((on Cybertron, a month later...))

"You... did... WHAT?!" Demolisher yelled, gaping at Hot Shot.

"I invited the humans to Cybertron for the summer!" Hot Shot said angrily. "What, is there a problem with that?!"

"Yes! I don't think we're quite ready to bring biologicals to Cybertron. How will they breath? Think about that!"

Hot Shot sighed. "Look, we're terra-forming Cybertron. Humans should be able to at least stay in this city. We've got enough oxygen they can..."

"I KNOW that!" Demolisher interrupted. "I've been going around to every terra-forming lab in Regalix making sure things get done."

"Hey, I've been doing all the legal stuff," Hot Shot argued. "I don't see how sitting in the labs watching everyone work is going to help."

"I don't just sit in the labs, I..." Demolisher trailed off, growling. "Look, the point is I know the progress and if you bring humans here they won't be able to leave the city, and they'll probably spend most of the time indoors so they don't start choking."

"What makes you think they'd choke?" Hot Shot asked.

Without speaking, Demolisher walked to the window in their joint office, and gestured outside. Below, Regalix, the new capital city of Cybertron, was bustling with activity. Fliers soared over the city, and below shining metal buildings reflected the multicolored sky above. Holograms of the Autobot and Decepticon sigils watched over the city.

Hot Shot walked over. "Regalix. Looks nice. Your point?"

"Look at the sky," Demolisher said.

Hot Shot looked up. "So? It's the sky! Lots of pretty colors. Are you going somewhere with this or do you just think I need to go site-seeing more?"

At that moment Diddlysquat walked up behind them. "Yo, Hot Shot. Jolt's been begging me to let him visit you so..." He gave Hot Shot a weird look. "Did you just say 'pretty colors'?"

Demolisher ignored Diddlysquat. "Those colors are caused by gasses that humans can't breath. We do have oxygen in our atmosphere, but our atmosphere is 55% ozone, 26% carbon dioxide, 9% carbon monoxide, 8% oxygen, and 2% primus-knows-what. They won't be able to breath very long without being near some kind of oxygen generators."

Diddlysquat was nearing hysterics. "The great Autobot leader just said 'pretty colors'!" He covered his mouth with one hand, motioned to Jolt he could stay, and dashed out of the room.

"So?" Hot Shot said. "We're way ahead of schedule as it is. We predicted that we'd be done terra-forming in about twenty years, but it looks like it'll take about two."

"That doesn't mean they can come NOW!" Demolisher yelled. "Carbon monoxide is toxic to humans, and there's more of that than there is oxygen! We can't let them come to Cybertron."

Hot Shot glared at Demolisher. "They want to come, and like you said, we can just keep them near oxygen generators. They're coming to Cybertron and that's final." Hot Shot turned and stomped out of the room, Jolt following. "And you don't have the authority to stop me. No one's going to listen to a 'leader' who runs around the city and never works."

Demolisher gaped at Hot Shot's back as the door slammed close. Never works? Never works?! What was that supposed to mean?!? Demolisher was the one who had to make sure everything was being done right! He even had to do two days of manual labor the week before because Hot Shot had signed vacation requests for half of the Omnicons without realizing it. It was the most painfully tiring two days he'd had in millennia. Hot Shot, rushing through paperwork he shouldn't be doing and taking long breaks, was the one who never works. But, Hot Shot was right, in a way. What was Demolisher supposed to do about this?

'_What can I do about this?'_ Demolisher asked himself. _'I'm just a stupid soldier. I wasn't programmed to lead anything, except other soldiers. Megatron was too. Even he couldn't do this without having to kill Hot Shot or something.'_ Demolisher snorted. _'I'm not that desperate. I don't even care about the humans. I just don't want to be responsible if they get sick or something.'_

Demolisher stared out the window. _'So. Who do I know who could influence people?'_ He stood there a few seconds, watching Transformers go by on the street below, before it finally dawned on him. _'Thrust! Thrust always gets his way, doesn't he? Somehow, he got people to do what he wanted.'_ Demolisher grinned to himself. _'Now we're getting somewhere. So, think of a way Thrust could make sure those humans stayed on Earth until the terra-forming got a little farther along.'_ Demolisher started pacing.

"Okay, so, I can't just not let them come up. That could start the war up again, if Hot Shot doesn't want to give. I could bribe the pilot to sidetrack the ship... no, I could get caught. Don't want to get kicked out of office, Primus knows what'd happen to the Decepticons then." Demolisher sighed. "I need to think of something LEGAL." He glared out the window at the polluted skies.

"The problem isn't really the humans, is it?" he said suddenly. "It's the atmosphere. So, if I could find some way to keep them out of the atmosphere... A different way than keeping them near an oxygen generator..."

Demolisher looked down at the city. There were many huge buildings, but there were lots of empty areas where buildings were yet to have been rebuild after the war. Maybe some buildings could be built for humans to live in?

Demolisher left the room to search out Hot Shot.

((about half an hour later...))

"Hot Shot!" Demolisher exclaimed, having found his co-leader (for some reason, Hot Shot objected to being called co-commander) in the rec room playing video games. "When are the humans coming?"

Hot Shot paused and looked up. "Um, well, why do you want to know?"

"Just answer the question," Demolisher persisted.

"Okay..." Hot Shot thought a moment. "Well, it's April on Earth, they get out at the end of May, and they're coming up a few weeks after that..." Hot Shot shrugged. "About two Earth-months. Why?"

"We've gotta build some place for them to stay while they're up here!" Demolisher said. "We can't just leave them out in our current atmosphere. And if we ever want human embassies to come up here..."

"Wait a second!" Hot Shot said. "Don't you think that's a little much? They're only staying for summer, after all."

"We don't want them to die, now do we?" Demolisher said. "And they could if we don't give them somewhere safe to stay."

Hot Shot shook his head in annoyance. "Well, I'm not gonna work on this. If you wanna do it, that's your problem."

"Fine," Demolisher said. "I doubt there'll be any need to sign datapads, anyway." He turned to leave.

Hot Shot gave Demolisher a dirty look, then turned back to his game. "You're gonna kill yourself with all this extra work," he said casually.

Demolisher smirked to himself as he left. _'This coming from the Autobot who said I 'never work'.'_

...

Alexis sighed and threw her books aside. She was SICK and TIRED of studying for finals! They weren't even for another month, but she had learned last year that not getting a head start could drop your grade dramatically. Her finals had almost all been C's and B's, except for Algebra. It was her best subject.

"I need a break," she muttered, dragging herself to her computer. She got online, and waited impatiently for MyYahoo to load. Dial-up was getting slower every day. She had had Comcast, but her parents decided that she was taking the "privilege of ridiculously fast Internet much too lightly!" In other words, she'd done something else wrong without knowing it and was grounded from using Comcast for a month. They had hidden the cable well this time. So she was forced to use ((shudder)) dial-up.

Finally, the page was up! Alexis glanced at her Inbox. The exploding mail icon was beside it. She had mail.

Grinning, Alexis clicked it (and waaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiited!). Hot Shot had said he was going to let them know when he got authorization for them to come to Cybertron. This was probably it. Seeing as no one ELSE ever emailed her...

"You have **1 unread message**." the screen said. Alexis clicked on the link below it, leading to her Inbox.

The email was from Hot Shot. Well, duh. Clicking on it, she read:

"Hey Alexis!

"I finally convinced Demolisher to let you guys come up here. He didn't really care either way, I think, but being a Decepticon, he had to fight over it anyway. He tried to use some pitiful excuse to keep you from coming, but I guess even he realized it wouldn't work, and just gave up and started some building project. I haven't heard another word about it from him since. Being a Con must give you a short attention span or something.

"So, we'll be waiting for you! Finish your school thing quick!

"Hot Shot, Co-Leader of Cybertronian Empire"

Alexis typed a quick reply.

"Great! We'll be looking forward to it! By the way, good name chance. It's a lot better than Co-Commander.

"Alexis"

"Hmm. Just like a Decepticon," Alexis muttered, reluctantly going back to her studying. "Demolisher goes off and starts some project for no reason at all. I'll bet he doesn't even care we're going to Cybertron this summer."

.....

Heh, yeah, an ironic little ending. And, what Demolisher is doing IS kind of what Thrust would do, isn't it? Finding some way around the rules to ultimately either get what he wants or something he can live with. He may be a jerk, but he is a strategist.

If you look closely in chapters-to-come, you'll find a good deal of this story is irony.

And, for anyone who cares, my pizza from last chapter did get here, thirty-four minutes after I ordered it. No, it was not free.

ckret2


	4. Gag Me Please

Hello! After one slaggin' HUGE dose of writer's block, I'm back with chapter four! FINALLY!!

Pivot: Thanks again for permission to throw Hypotenuse in. He appears 'bout halfway through this chapter and, apparently, is smarter than 3/5ths of Cybertron. And I had to look up "cephalopods" after I read your first review. Heh... Thankee for advice on narration, I worked on the end of chapter three a bit and I'll be more careful in the future. Thanks for the two reviews and good luck on your two dozen projects!!

Haley Macrae: An hour? O.o;; Hope that pizza was free. Interesting how you refer to the humans as "Alexis and the others." Did I influence that, or do you just like Alexis more than the other humans? Or, maybe, dislike Alexis less that the other humans? Anyway, thankee for the review!

Neko: Eh, that's okay, it was a pretty good pizza. It was worth the money. Glad you like, and thanks for the review!

Naphtali Phoenix: Cool name. What does Naphtali mean? Yes, I've made fun of Hot Shot a lot so far. He's just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. The place being my fanfics and the time being any time I'm writing. :D Naah, I'm not always mean to him. You like the title? Squee! Thankee! Have you by any chance heard "One"? Or read the lyrics? Thanks for the review.

indigo-ink: Yes, he's a lazy idiot. But do me a favor and don't kill Hot Shot yet. I need him for the rest of the fic, and I like playing as him on Prelude To Energon. Heh. If you think Hot Shot's acting mean to Sideswipe, you should see what happens when Wheeljack's thrown into the mix. And I'm not talking about how Hot Shot treats him... Hot Shot and Wheeljack general try to ignore each other... no, it gets bad when Sideswipe gets near Wheeljack. All I can say is poor Wheeljack... Love your fics, update soon, and thanks for the review!

In this chapter some Energon characters are introduced, so for you guys who haven't seen Energon yet, for one reason or another (you know who you are! ;-) ), read this. Don't worry, it doesn't contain any huge spoilers. If you've seen Energon already, skip the next paragraph if you want.

Dr. Jones is a scientist/engineer/technologist of sorts, and is in Energon as the Dude That Makes All The Stuff. Kicker is his son who's sixteen at the start of Energon, which means that at the end of Armada he's only six years old, about kindergarten age. I could tell you a lot of stuff about that kid but I think I'll just tell you that he has brown hair, looked cute when he was a little kid (there are a couple of flashback scenes in Energon), and isn't incredibly fond of giant robots. There'll be more about that in a few chapters. Shockblast is a Decepticon who REALLY doesn't like Autobots, and from evidence in Energon it seems he didn't try very hard to be friends with Autobots in the ten year interlude between wars.

And that's all you need to know about them. They're introduced in this chapter (quite accidentally... I wasn't planning on throwing Shockblast in for at least five chapters!), so I just thought you guys who haven't seen Energon yet would need to know that these guys are, indeed, canon characters, and not spawns from my insane mind.

Quotes in **bold** are translated from Minicon-speak. Say, what is the official name of their language? Miniconian? Minican? Miniconese? Minicolonesian? Beepian? Who knows??

Disclaimer: Transformers belongs to Hasbro, "One" belongs to Creed, Hypotenuse belongs to Pivot, and Diddlysquat, Regalix, Seek Destroy and the EV belong to me. The manmade island is kinda mine and kinda not. You'll see.

.....

"Hot Shot," Demolisher said into his communicator, heading towards the lifts. He was supposed to be across town in less than ten cycles, but couldn't leave until he got someone to meet the humans at the spaceport. "Hot Shot, come in. Do you read? Do you even have your communicator on??" Silence. "Optimus Prime is the kid of a toaster and a broken electric blanket!" Still silence.

"Guess he DOES have it off," Demolisher said. He turned a corner and found himself face-to-face with a VERY angry Sideswipe.

"Ah, good," Demolisher said before Sideswipe could speak. "You're here. You've met Diddlysquat before, haven't you?"

Sideswipe nodded quickly, opened his mouth to speak, and was cut off again.

"The humans are almost here from Earth. Go find Diddlysquat and tell him to go meet them at the Regalix Spaceport."

"But you-"

"NOW, Sideswipe!" Demolisher yelled. "That's an order!" Demolisher stalked off, muttering to himself. "I'm supposed to be checking that security breach at the penitentiary, which is just stupid since that place was made to hold prisoners of war and the war's OVER!! What are you waiting for, Sideswipe, do you want to leave your friends at the spaceport?! Get Diddly!!"

Sideswipe opened his mouth to retort, but thought better and went to find Diddlysquat. A thought struck him, and he groaned. Who'd watch after the Minicons?

...

Demolisher pressed the down button and waited for the lift, arms crossed and tapping his foot. "What's taking so long?" he muttered, waited another minute, then threw up his hands in exasperation. "How can it take this long for a stupid lift to get here!" he said, turning around and heading towards the stairs. "When I find out who's keeping that lift, I'm gonna tear them apart..."

((on the lift, two floors lower...))

The lift door swung open. Seek Destroy set a brick in the door to keep it open, then flew through the entire level, saying "**Heeeeere, Diddlysquat, c'mon!"** Seek Destroy turned to the three Requiem Blaster Minicons. **"You remember what to do when we find him, right?"** The RB Minicons exchanged nervous glances.

((back with Demolisher))

Demolisher growled in annoyance and kicked the lift door. Fine, he'd have to go the long way.

Taking the stairs down four at a time (which resulted in him tripping six times), he checked him internal chronometer. He had less than six cycles to get across town. Slag.

At the bottom of the stairs, Demolisher transformed and raced towards the doors, straight past Wheeljack.

"Wait, Demolisher! I need someone to..."

"SorryI'mlategottagoI'lldoitlater!" Demolisher yelled, and a second later was out the door.

Wheeljack stared at the place he had been. "Slag. Now I have to go find Hot Shot..." Wheeljack scowled. Not only was that a next-to-impossible task, he really didn't want to confront Hot Shot for any reason. Then he had an idea, and smiled.

"I guess I can consider my vacation request authorized," Wheeljack said, strolling out the front door.

...

Sideswipe had found Diddlysquat on the sixth floor, hiding from Seek Destroy, and sent him out of the base to get the humans. Diddly had eagerly gone, stopping only to get Hypotenuse and give Sideswipe six stun guns and eighteen smoke screen bombs. If Sideswipe was gonna be Minicon-sitting, he'd need 'em.

Diddly walked above the streets of Regalix in his alt-mode, a spider tank. He could move quickly through crowds by placing his four spider-legs in small gaps between Transformers and moving above everyone else. That helped, and the fact that when there's a giant walking tank around, most crowds tend to grow at least a little thinner around it.

Hypotenuse sat on top of Diddlysquat. Him being one of the more reasonable-minded Minicons Diddlysquat was responsible for, Hypotenuse had the honor of going with Diddlysquat on some errands. If owning Minicons was still legal, Diddlysquat probably would have claimed Hypotenuse. Of course, Hypotenuse probably would have killed him then.

Hypotenuse did not want to be owned.

"Why do we care about a bunch of humans, anyway?" Hyp asked. "I was only around them for a little bit, and they seemed pretty stupid to me." 

"We care about them because if we don't pick them up, I get fired. And you care about them because if I'm fired, you and all the other Minicons will be given to another Minicon baby-sitter--"

"**Caretaker,"** Hyp corrected.

"Another Minicon _caretaker_ who won't know how to handle Seek Destroy, and so he'll be slagged, and you'll all be labeled "dangerous" and locked up. I was a prisoner of war once, and believe me; being locked up is, more than anything else, BORING."

"**Good point,"** Hyp said. **"Let's go get them, shall we?"**

They traveled in silence for a little bit. Bored, Diddly looked around for something to talk about. His eyes caught a heading. "Hey, look at that!"

They were passing a news datadisk dispenser, which looked a lot like Earth vending machines, except instead of snacks, they sold little disks you could insert into a datapad and read. One of the disks declared, "HOT SHOT VOTED MOST POPULAR OF OUR TWO NEW LEADERS". As they watched, a purple Transformer came up and bought one of the datadisks.

Diddly snorted. "What's that rookie so popular for? All he does is go around partying! I've never seen him do any actual work."

"**Which is why he's so popular,"** Hyp said. **"Demolisher does all the actual work, which makes him look like a boring killjoy. Hot Shot is going to a lot of parties, making sure everyone on Cybertron sees he's this great leader who knows how to have fun. He smiles for the camera, he does interviews, he goes to every social even from here to Iacon, and so he's popular. And it doesn't hurt that he's younger than Demolisher."** Hyp paused. **"And he's better looking."**

Diddly screeched to a halt. "Better looking?? Since when did YOU care about..."

"**Not my words! The femme Minicons! THEY said that, I just heard them!"** Hyp said quickly. **"And it's kinda hard not to. Every time he walks by, it's 'Oh my gosh! He's sooo good looking! Ohmigosh, Ohmigosh, lookit his SMILE!' Swoon, swoon, giggle, gag me please."**

Diddly laughed, and started walking again, much to the relief of nearby Transformers who were afraid he had stopped to fire his cannon or something. Walking tanks do that to people.

"That's just stupid," Diddly said. "I don't know much about anything but war, but I know that someone who just sits on his skidplate all day doesn't deserve to lead."

Hyp grinned cynically. **"It's all about popularity, and Decepticons don't have the popular view of life."**

"What's that s'posed to mean?" Diddly asked.

"**Autobots make up about two-fifths of Cybertron, Decepticons are another two-fifths, and neutrals are the last fifth. And Autobots and neutrals want to see a friendly face. The guy that goes to all the social events is the friendly face. Demolisher is the face no one sees. Only Decepticons see who's doing the real work."**

"Well maybe Decepticons are smarter," Diddly said.

Hyp snickered. **"I think you're right about that."**

...

The purple Transformer who had bought the datadisk about Hot Shot leaned on a wall, out of everyone else's way, and inserted the datadisk into a slot in the bottom of a datapad. The disk uploaded, and an article appeared on the screen. It was about some place Hot Shot had attended the grand opening of. The purple Transformer skimmed the article with his one optic, snorted in disgust, and ejected the datadisk.

"There are a thousand useful things he could be doing, and he's watching the opening of an arcade," he sneered, throwing the datadisk on the ground and crushing it with one foot. "Idiot Autobot."

He looked up as two flier police Transformers skimmed over the street, scanning the crowds and communication over their com-links. He heard one of them say, "Shockblast should be somewhere around here..."

Shockblast ducked into an open doorway as they went by, only daring to look out when he was sure they'd gone by. They had no legal rights to keep him in that cell at the other end of Regalix. He had been a prisoner of war, and when the war was over, he should have been released, right? But noooo, they kept him locked up their for no reason at all! Oh, they'd find him all right, right after he'd gotten a two-million-signature petition to keep him out of a cell, a pardon from the two Cybertronian leaders, and a very good lawyer...

The Decepticon walked back into the crowd, and in another second couldn't be seen.

...

((back on Earth...))

About three miles offshore, there was a small lab on a man-made island, connected to mainland by only a four-lane bridge. The lab was designed to be able to sink under water in case of a storm, but it wasn't underwater now. Right now, it was above water and humming with activity.

The lab was filled with all kinds of scientists and technologists, studying everything from chemistry to psychology to agriculture to meteorology, and everything in the middle. But what the lab was famous for, at least amongst top scientists, was Universuspectare, or the EV. The EV was the most powerful telescope produced by mankind, and thus, was kept secret to everyone but the ones authorized to use it and those who worked on the man-made island the EV was kept on. Dr. Jones was one of the few elite scientists who were allowed to use the EV, and in fact his team of scientists were given full rights to it, even down to keeping it clean. And a lense that big in the middle of the ocean is hard to keep clean. Y'know, seagulls... you get the idea.

On this day, Dr. Jones and his team were about to make a most interesting discovery.

Dr. Jones walked into the laboratory, his six-year-old son behind him. On weekends and holidays, Kicker often came to work with his father, and now that summer break had started, he came much more frequently. The other scientists hadn't like it until the boy had caught an escaped hamster a month earlier. Now they didn't pay him any attention. At least, they didn't until they needed him to catch something.

"Dr. Jones!" a young man called from across the room. "You'll never guess what we saw yesterday! It's... it's amazing!"

Dr. Jones turned towards the voice, and saw his assistant Marty Alden waving. Dr. Jones smiled and nodded so Marty knew he had seen him, then looked down at Kicker. "It looks like I'm going to be busy awhile. You know where the room with the animals are, right? You can go there."

Kicker nodded. "I'm gonna see if Jenny will let me play with the big snake!" he said, running off. Dr. Jones smiled. Dr. Jennifer Warren would have her hands full with Kicker.

"So Marty, what do we have here?" Dr. Jones asked, coming up behind his assistant.

"You won't believe it," Dr. Alden said, turning towards the computer he had been working on. It showed a shot of space.

Dr. Jones leaned towards it. "You're right! I've never seen the moon so bright! Our telescope must've been able to cut through the pollution last night."

Dr. Alden shook his head quickly. "No, that's not what's so... weird. Dr. Jones, that's not the moon."

"What??" Dr Jones said, studying the picture closer. Sure enough, in the bottom right corner of the image, the pale sliver of the real moon was visible. "So what is that?"

"That's what we want to know," Dr. Alden said, magnifying the white circle. It was now a little irregular around the edge, and a bit of red gleamed on the rim of the circle, like it was burning. "But whatever it was, it's moving fast."

Dr. Alden switched the view to infrared. On the green background, the orb was still solid white. Apparently, it was very very hot. Dr. Alden showed another image that had been taken an hour later. The white spot was barely visible. He flipped to an image an hour after that, and obviously the EV had been adjusted to track the white spot. But now it was elongated, the front half a bright yellow and the back still white. Dr. Jones frowned. "Do we have any idea what this thing is?

Dr. Alden shook his head. "No. All we have is the infrareds, because when we change it back to normal view..." Dr. Alden did so, and the elongated figure disappeared. All that could be seen was a shimmer of white, "... we don't get anything."

Dr. Jones nodded thoughtfully. "Do we have any idea where it's headed?"

"Yes, actually. We calculated it last night." Dr. Alden called up a star chart that had a red arch drawn on it, intersecting three stars before it left the chart. "It could be headed towards any of these, but we think it's headed towards..." Dr. Alden moved the cursor so it pointed at the second one, "this one."

Dr. Jones looked at it and the name under it. It was simply called "JTG112096." He frowned. "What makes you say that? It's headed towards all three."

"These images." Dr. Alden pulled up three images, one of each of the three stars. One of the amazing abilities of the EV was that it was powerful enough it could actually see the planets orbiting distant stars. It couldn't exactly see the face of a dime from eight light-years away, but it could see path of the Great Wall of China from that far away.

"This star," Dr. Alden pointed to the first image, "doesn't have any planets. It's a red star, about ready to die. Now, this star," he pointed to the third image, "has three planets, but these two are just shapeless rock, and this one isn't solid yet. It's still completely molten, like young Earth." Dr. Alden clicked on the secon image, so it filled the screen. "And this star is about the age of our sun. But the interesting part of it is this." As Dr. Alden spoke, he zoomed in on one part of the image. There, plain as day, was a bright silver planet, with a chunk torn out of the surface. And on the dark side... Dr. Jones leaned forward, his brow furrowed. The dark side was ablaze with tiny pinpricks of light, the kind of light you see when a busy metropolis like New York City or Tokyo is on the dark side of Earth. Except these dots of light weren't scattered around. They were spread evenly and thickly, with two small areas solidly white.

"Something's on that planet," Dr. Jones murmured. He turned to Dr. Alden. "Do you know how big this planet is?" Dr. Alden shook his head. "We're still trying to figure out the approximate size of the sun. No one's really paid attention to JTG112096 before. It doesn't even have a name." Dr. Alden suddenly smiled. "Hey, how 'bout we name it? Right now?"

Dr. Jones considered it, and then shook his head. "Let's let them name it," he said, tapping the image of the silver planet.

.....

So, there, at long last, is chapter 4! I'll try to update as soon as possible, which unfortunately may not be very soon... I think I'm over my writer's block, though. I hope I am... We haven't gotten to the main part of the fic, but we're getting there! This is all kinda the intro.

Oh, and if you haven't figured out what the silver planet orbiting JTG112096 is, you're either very tired or haven't been paying attention. I'll just tell you now, it's Cybertron.

ckret2


End file.
